Reliable Embedded Systems

Andrew Tanenbaum: Operating Systems' Mr Reliable PDF Print E-mail
The inspiration for Linus Torvalds' Linux operating system was the MINIX OS authored by Vrije Universiteit computer science professor and ACM Fellow Dr. Andrew Tanenbaum, who is visiting Linux Australia's linux.conf.au to discuss designing reliable OSes and to introduce the new LF (Lifetime Failures) metric, which represents how many times the software has crashed in the user's lifetime. Tanenbaum points to the wide employment of microkernels "in mission critical industrial and military systems where failures are intolerable," and he still feels passionately for monolithic OSes because the need for reliability is prevalent. He contends that most users desire, more than anything else, reliable, failure-proof operation. Tanenbaum has not changed his opinion that he would give Torvalds a failing grade were he a student of his, arguing that what Torvalds should have done was improve an existing OS instead of "retrogressing to a much earlier design." Tanenbaum also cites code bloat that makes Windows or Linux systems slow to boot as another disadvantage. Tanenbaum notes that in the nearly two decades since MINIX was introduced, it has inspired scores of students in OS design. "I think that it will yet show that the only way to make a system truly reliable is to make it small and modular," he says.
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